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Season 9,5: More Grind, Less Content (21.06.14 feedback)
suaveks
Member Posts: 1,736 Arc User
I've just came back from Tribble after checking out the game's latest... changes... I wanted to say "additions" at first, but that would imply something was actually being added, while it's actually the other way around.
I'm honestly flabbergasted by what I've seen. You've basically went the worst possible way by turning STO into a Mobile game with the new Crafting "revamp". Tons of grind for new resources, artificial timers, pay-walls, unnecessarily simplified UI, dumbed down doffing, RNG, "optional" (no doubt paid) catalyst items, ridiculous dilithium costs, and - once again - complete and total alt-unfriendliness (enjoy leveling crafiting on your alts people...).
But you know, I think I wouldn't mind all of this THAT much if not for one other change - the complete removal of Exploration Clusters.
I mean, WHAT THE FRAK CRYPTIC?!
Should the new Crafting be the only change then I guess I would have been fine with it. I guess I'd just go back doing some good old Exploration Clusters, to do random missions and get some crafting materials from their anomalies while at it.
But noooooo... You knew this would be a decent source of crafting materials so you've decided to remove these Clusters completely, together with all the missions they've offered, all the random anomalies to scan, as well as a huge portion doffing convenience...
Honestly Cryptic, are you trying to kill the game, or just TRIBBLE your players off? Sure, the Star Cluster content was lacking, but it was the closest STO had to offer when it comes to some random exploration, as well as one of few instances of doing some non-combat, diplomatic missions (First Contact etc.). Now you're removing these completely and expect us to grind your story content over and over (because Queued PvE missions don't offer any crafting materials)? Seriously? With your rate of adding new content that's actually playable, and isn't just yet another system/gimmick?
Unless I'm missing something, you're basically removing:
- Star Cluster instances/maps
- All the Star Cluster random missions (both combat and non-combat) that could be done either solo or in a team
- All the diplomatic missions (First Contact)
- Random anomalies in both the Star Clusters and their individual missions
- Daily missions that reward dilithium for completing Star Cluster missions
- Doffing convenience and Department Heads opportunities for unique missions and assignment chains
- Excelsior, Suliban Cell Ship and Tuffli Freighter unique transwarp capabilities (their features we've paid for...)
- Chance for players to deal with different enemy types depending on Star Cluster (even if they were just generic aliens)
- Tons of (better or worse) existing assets, maps, enemy types, visuals etc.
- Accolades associated with individual clusters and NPCs
All of this only to add a new Crafting/doffing system that revolves around RNG, timers and grind/pay-walls, not to mention huge dilithium investment. It all screams MOBILE and I bet you're gonna be releasing all of this to STO Gateway, considering how much pointless clicking it involves.
You're doing it wrong. You don't remove a huge portion of your game's content - no matter how lackluster - without introducing anything in its place. I'd expect Star Clusters to be removed as part of some bigger Exploration Revamp. But no... There's nothing - you're just removing something that (originally) was supposed to be one of STO's selling point, only to make it more difficult for people to get their crafting materials.
How long do you think players will tolerate your greedy attitude? For the past several months you've been basically doing everything to monetize the game, but little to actually make it fun and engaging. Exploration is getting removed, story content is repetitive, Foundry is lackluster, queued missions are too easy, power creep is out of control, plus you're focusing on events and missions available only during weekends - which makes it all even more repetitive and tedious.
Not sure what to add here aside from the fact that I'm more and more disappointed with Cryptic's business model, as well as pissed at your greed and lack of understanding. I could get over the whole Mobile-Market-Crafting thing by either not doing it, or just doing it at my own leisure, but removing the Star Cluster missions is just too much at this point.
If you don't want players to grind Star Clusters to get their anomalies, and you just want them to buy materials off the C-Store, then nerf the anomalies, or something, but don't remove a huge portion of your content alltogether just because you think you know what's better for your players. Because you clearly don't...
I'm honestly flabbergasted by what I've seen. You've basically went the worst possible way by turning STO into a Mobile game with the new Crafting "revamp". Tons of grind for new resources, artificial timers, pay-walls, unnecessarily simplified UI, dumbed down doffing, RNG, "optional" (no doubt paid) catalyst items, ridiculous dilithium costs, and - once again - complete and total alt-unfriendliness (enjoy leveling crafiting on your alts people...).
But you know, I think I wouldn't mind all of this THAT much if not for one other change - the complete removal of Exploration Clusters.
I mean, WHAT THE FRAK CRYPTIC?!
Should the new Crafting be the only change then I guess I would have been fine with it. I guess I'd just go back doing some good old Exploration Clusters, to do random missions and get some crafting materials from their anomalies while at it.
But noooooo... You knew this would be a decent source of crafting materials so you've decided to remove these Clusters completely, together with all the missions they've offered, all the random anomalies to scan, as well as a huge portion doffing convenience...
Honestly Cryptic, are you trying to kill the game, or just TRIBBLE your players off? Sure, the Star Cluster content was lacking, but it was the closest STO had to offer when it comes to some random exploration, as well as one of few instances of doing some non-combat, diplomatic missions (First Contact etc.). Now you're removing these completely and expect us to grind your story content over and over (because Queued PvE missions don't offer any crafting materials)? Seriously? With your rate of adding new content that's actually playable, and isn't just yet another system/gimmick?
Unless I'm missing something, you're basically removing:
- Star Cluster instances/maps
- All the Star Cluster random missions (both combat and non-combat) that could be done either solo or in a team
- All the diplomatic missions (First Contact)
- Random anomalies in both the Star Clusters and their individual missions
- Daily missions that reward dilithium for completing Star Cluster missions
- Doffing convenience and Department Heads opportunities for unique missions and assignment chains
- Excelsior, Suliban Cell Ship and Tuffli Freighter unique transwarp capabilities (their features we've paid for...)
- Chance for players to deal with different enemy types depending on Star Cluster (even if they were just generic aliens)
- Tons of (better or worse) existing assets, maps, enemy types, visuals etc.
- Accolades associated with individual clusters and NPCs
All of this only to add a new Crafting/doffing system that revolves around RNG, timers and grind/pay-walls, not to mention huge dilithium investment. It all screams MOBILE and I bet you're gonna be releasing all of this to STO Gateway, considering how much pointless clicking it involves.
You're doing it wrong. You don't remove a huge portion of your game's content - no matter how lackluster - without introducing anything in its place. I'd expect Star Clusters to be removed as part of some bigger Exploration Revamp. But no... There's nothing - you're just removing something that (originally) was supposed to be one of STO's selling point, only to make it more difficult for people to get their crafting materials.
How long do you think players will tolerate your greedy attitude? For the past several months you've been basically doing everything to monetize the game, but little to actually make it fun and engaging. Exploration is getting removed, story content is repetitive, Foundry is lackluster, queued missions are too easy, power creep is out of control, plus you're focusing on events and missions available only during weekends - which makes it all even more repetitive and tedious.
Not sure what to add here aside from the fact that I'm more and more disappointed with Cryptic's business model, as well as pissed at your greed and lack of understanding. I could get over the whole Mobile-Market-Crafting thing by either not doing it, or just doing it at my own leisure, but removing the Star Cluster missions is just too much at this point.
If you don't want players to grind Star Clusters to get their anomalies, and you just want them to buy materials off the C-Store, then nerf the anomalies, or something, but don't remove a huge portion of your content alltogether just because you think you know what's better for your players. Because you clearly don't...
Post edited by suaveks on
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This last-ditch effort to make crafting relevant again has so far only led to the loss of the closest thing this game has ever had to true Star Trek exploration and the conversion of the entire crafting system into yet another God-forsaken grind.
I'm not impressed.
crafting overhaul was not needed in this game, the Rep and Fleet system made crafting a useless thing to invest into. There is no reason to do crafting. They should have instead focus on content after you hit rep tier 5, like hour long raids that unlock after tier 5 where the gear you grinded for would be useful for
Besides, it's not about the grind in this case, but rather the removal of a huge portion of the game's content.
I honestly don't care how lackluster the Star Cluster missions are. I realise Cryptic won't even bother fixing those that were buggy since launch. Still, there is NO reason to remove those at this point and I honestly believe Cryptic's doing this solely to make crafting materials more difficult to obtain.
But you know what the funny thing is? The fact that I would need to grind for anomalies/crafting materials would serve as a great motivator to go back to these exploration missions. I would gladly run these random, poorly thought out and sometimes repetitive missions, not only to get myself some materials, but also complete the daily wrappers, as well as make my daily game experience more interesting, instead of grinding the same queued missions over and over and over again. I would be more interested in running Star Clusters and their unique doff assignments than repeating the same old story missions I've already completed numerous times on my alts over the course of four years...
If Cryptic wants to remove the current Star Clusters then they should introduce something in their place. I don't know if they plan on doing any kind of Exploration Revamp in the future, but if they don't then I honestly think they should NOT remove the existing one solely because they think it's not "up to par" with their newer content (i.e. a handful of queued missions and a single FE released twice a year...)
I couldn't care less about crafting. As with many other systems and game mechanics I think we would have to deal with it one way or another, at least until they'd decide to introduce yet another new gimmick to monetize. But introducing such new mechanic AND removing a part of the game's playable content, saying it's a "feature" is a huge step in the wrong direction.
I really hope Cryptic will back out of this decission and will leave the Star Clusters as they were, at least until they decide to do some proper Exploration Revamp. As such, I strongly encourage people to post over the forums if they're also against the removal of Exploration Clusters.
In fact, I take issue with this thread title. The star clusters were nothing but one huge grind. Now the only thing I wanted to do in them (doff assignments) has been made much more convenient and the nonsense I couldn't care less about after running it a handful of times is gone.
The star clusters are the single biggest source of crafting materials in the game. If Cryptic want us to grind to a total of 14 million craftingXP, they need to let us have the materials to build enough Components to make enough Items to get there. Without the dozen or so samples you can get from each exploration mission, you are never going to be able to get enough to make any headway with the new system. There are none available on New Romulus, none available on Nimbus, none available on Nukara, none available in the Dyson Sphere, and none available in STFs. The storyline missions are nowhere near enough interesting or challenging to keep grinding to get the samples, and DOffing for materials takes all the fun out of it (not to mention taking a lot longer for lower reward).
"Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages/these are the battles/this is the legacy of the Starship MyShipName, her five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations; to boldly go where no-one has gone before!"
How exactly will we accomplish that with star clusters gone?
That quote there? That IS Star Trek. That is why people play the game. If you take that away, all you are left with is a poorly-scripted space battles game with a Star Trek skin slapped on.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Despite being generated by an algorithm, they are still better than the vast majority of foundry missions. That and the exploration missions would (eventually) give accolades and titles. If only accos gave something, like a wee bit of dil.
I don't see eye to eye with the devs over the exploration nerf. That's a solid 3700 short missions just gone from the game, plus the diplomatic ones which were in the exploration clusters. What kind of crazy does one have to be to remove that amount of content from their game, however buggy it might be from time to time?
Oh, I also forgot about the removal of the exploration dailies which is another dil nerf.
I admit, they did need work. Some missions were a bit temperamental and the whole thing itself wasn't well explained even in days gone by, but those are not insurmountable issues. It's just another example of something else that was left out of the new fed tutorial completely where it was briefly mentioned in the old one. Hell, just about everything in this game is poorly documented and it's getting worse over time.
Exploration needed a once over, a fresh lick of paint for the house and a landscaping in the garden. It did not however require the full on "DELETEDELETEDELETE NAO!" treatment!
"A fool stands by and does nothing when a preventable catastrophe occurs."
Meaning, people aren't overreacting this time. 9.5 is going to have a major impact on the game play of everyone, not just the crafters. Exploration clusters are gone (which was one of the original 3 STO pillars of content), the DOFF system is changing where it's harder to earn regular drops, crafting has been degraded in ability, and the economy is going to take a major hit as people will be earning less. And small fleets will especially suffer, since casual players will not be able to earn as much as they once did.
9.5 very much could be the STO's NGE moment. And the playerbase is already on edge because of the excessive grinding. It makes me wonder if D'Angelo's leadership is really showing itself to be a bad thing for STO.
Ooh-rah. Exactly right.
3700 missions from two basic flavors, scan 5 things or kill 5 squads. This isn't a meaningful amount of content. It's perhaps the weakest part of STO. Now removing it without providing an adequate Exploration substitute I agree isn't a happy occasion but it is perhaps the least substantial cut Cryptic could make to this game. At least now there's the opportunity to replace it with something else at some point in the future (which seems pretty damned likely to be when we get the Delta Quadrant.)
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
So, you'd want 3700 missions that are there right now to go in favour of an unknown amount of an unknown stuff due to come at an unknown time from a company with a pretty poor rep when it comes to this sort of thing? :rolleyes:
As I said earlier, exploration as it stood did not need deleting. It needed work done to it and done around it yes, but to remove it lock stock and barrel without replacement nor any concrete word on replacement? Not good.
The Candy Crush style "Buy Dilithium to speed up the process!" thing doesn't exactly help your image either, Cryptic.
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
On top of that, the mission selection available from those now nearly totally inaccessible points has been reduced from dozens of potential doff missions to about 5. This is not "convenient", this is the exact opposite of convenient.
While it is understandable that the developers might wish to axe maintenance on some 3500+ Exploration maps, the removal of the (empty) cluster map would do little to reduce server load while being massively inconvenient. At minimum, we could have kept the cluster map, and had it populated by crafting material anomaly scan points much in the same way the Klingon clusters are when you visit them as a Fed.
I hope that the DOff interface is nowhere near completion, or they're purposefully obfuscating numbers for new players. We forum-goers might know the optimal DOff missions for EC/Dil/Skill by name and heart, but new or more casual players won't...and the new interface seems to do a fine job of not allowing you to compare resource allocation vs reward very easily. Although this fits into their 'normalization' of prices across the board...and the pushing of bought dilithium to avoid timegates.
The crafting system doesn't seem as much for our convenience or fun as it is to be another way of monetizing a resource they only allow us to gain 8k at a time. Unless you buy it with Zen, of course...
At this point, I'm really only in it to build my Starbase because I find it fun...and the nerfs to resource gathering are going to hit my small casual Fleet pretty damn hard. Not sure if this will be the 'big one' that makes me quit the STO grind, but 9.5 is certainly going into the 'thousand cuts' pile that will eventually force me out with the multitude of grinds.
Indeed ... same thing happened with "Patrols", which are on the exact same level of quality ... so I don't get it ... keeping "Patrols" while deleting "Clusters" makes no sense ...
Also, when Cryptic decided to remove the Patrol missions from the Mission Journal they didn't remove them alltogether, even though they're pretty much on the same level as the Star Cluster missions. If you want, the missions are still there to find (at least for FEDs), even though there's little to no incentive to do them.
This time however they're basically removing several map instances from the game completely, with all their mission content, daily content, part of doff content and all the related accolades etc. And they're not introducing ANYTHING in that place.
You may not like the Star Cluster content, but it's still content that is very much playable, and in its own way diversified. Now it's going to be removed just like that, and from what I see many players are strongly against it. Personally I could deal with all the economy stuff and Cryptic's emphasis on monetizating every piece of content they release. I can't say the same about removing a piece of playable content.
I'm all for Exploration Revamp. Heck, off all the things I'd like to see in STO this one is at the top of my list. There's so much potential there, especially if you combine exploration with the Foundry, allowing players to create their own short(er) missions that would appear randomly in Star Clusters, even if they were just a variation on "kill/scan 5 things". Then and only then I'd be fine with removing current missions, because I'd expect something to be added in their place.
As it stands, considering what we know so far about Season 9,5, Cryptic's basically removing more content from the game than they're actually adding. I wonder how they're gonna market it on a trailer on someting...
"Star Trek Online Season 9,5: Timers and Paywalls, offers players a new way of wasting time on collecting resources, which they will need in overwhelmingly vast amounts to level up in our brand new revamped Crafting system. Experience grind as you've experienced on mobile devices, with tons of ways to spend real money to lessen the pain of grind and artificial barriers. Season 9,5 also dismisses Star Trek Online's original selling point with the removal of Exploration Clusters! No longer players will explore strange new worlds and new civilizations, as they'll now be forced to boldly go where every other player has gone tousands of times before! All of this and less coming your way in Star Trek Online Season 9,5: Timers and Paywalls!"
EDIT:
Let's be frank, the only reason Cryptic's removing the Star Clusters is to avoid people grinding the anomalies for crafting materials.
So here's a thought Cryptic - instead of removing the whole Star Clusters just remove the anomalies we get particles from. As in, every anomaly in the star cluster would always be a mission. Farmers would have to at least engage in those missions to get particles, while you wouldn't have to remove all the other content that's associated with Star Clusters.
Well I've just spend - let's say a lot of time - to get the full cluster accolades... Do you mean these already achieved accolades and points are going to be removed?!?
And yes... I've liked the Exploration Cluster missions a lot (altought it was repetitive and buggy).
It might sound odd for most of the players but I am very sad to see this taken out of the game. Hopefully the foundry will stay so I have at least a little "unknown".
As such, I await the coup de grace that finishes my attachment to STO for good. I can feel it coming.
Valdus | Charn | Costello | Typhus | Thyran
I've never taken advantage of the bridge invites before, so let me rephase: More convenient for me. Likely more convenient for the vast majority of players.
As for the missions, correct me if I'm wrong, but the button still shows all of the missions unique to the cluster. All you're missing are the generic ones available from any sector block, which I really don't care about and just ignore the majority of the time.
How about actual effort put into the design of the mission flow, environments, and writing, for a start?
They outright stated they're removing them because the missions are low quality and confusing to new players. Which I experienced first hand when I had to show a RL friend where to get his actual missions instead of the stupid cluster ones so he could actually progress in the game beyond leveling.
If Cryptic was to remove all the stuff that's "low quality" then I'm afraid there wouldn't be much of a game left...
PvP is low quality. So what? Should it be removed just like that? Heck, crafting was (*cough*still gonna be*cough*) "low quality" for over four years, but they didn't remove it at any point. So what makes Star Clusters any different that Cryptic suddenly decides to remove them alltogether just like that?
I guess my main point here is - if you don't like these Star Cluster missions, you just don't do them. But some other people do in fact like to run them, yet now they're going to be taken away from them without any logical reason. Part of STO playable content that was present since day-one - *poof*, gone, and with it many other assets and rewards.
So as I've said, if Cryptic's afraid of Star Cluster farmers, then they should just remove the anomalies, so that people wouldn't fly around the map grinding crafting materials. They shouldn't remove anything else. Not at this point at least - should they do a proper Exploration revamp then it would be much different story.
If they want people to craft, they are going to have to make it at least as easy to get materials as it is today, and less expensive (today's main problem with crafting), and with better available gear. It doesn't even make sense at the moment to craft for a fresh Level 50 when Fluid Dynamics hands out MkXI Very Rare Antiproton beams for free. The new system looks like similar dilithium inputs to now, but with less chance (ie less than 100%) of getting the item you want.
As for the Exploration Clusters. I've seen both sides of the coin, 2 new players that liked the simple missions to practice fighting and earn 1440 dilithium, and 1 that got lost because the game "asked" if they wanted to go in there.
95% of our story missions have the same formula. Beat 3 to 5 space mobs, beam down, beat 3 to 5 ground mobs, and boss, beam back up, maybe another boss fight in space. The Exploration clusters lacked in story, but would have either 1 - practice fighting in space, 2 - practice fighting on ground, 3 - farm anomalies, 4 - some random diplomatic action (EC sink). They did make good practice.
As to people getting lost in there: There is only one reason (including the person I saw it happen to). They did not READ THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THEIR MISSIONS.:mad: Story missions all tell you where to go. Most of them will set the course for you early on if you click the button that is pointed out with a tooltip when you leave Sol for the first time. If you don't want to go and explore places, an open world game is not the best choice.
If the dev team are concerned about the quality of the missions being a turn off to new players, and people getting confused and warping into DV by accident, they could simply make you have to pick up the exploration mission before going into the cluster. No mission, no prompt. As for quality, it is easy to call something sub-par when all that is realeased each year is two single player episodes, a handful of grinder 5 player missions, one or two persistent battle areas with very little story, and some high quality cut scenes.
This would even give the opportunity to slow down crafting farming too (even if they left the clusters as is). They could put a cooldown on the exploration, and only let you do one a day. Pop into the cluster, run 3 missions (if you want), scan some anomalies (if you want), pop out, then on cool down. They could even monitize this with some "exploration initiative" token for 1000 dilithium or something to remove the cooldown. To make this a win/win, they could STILL put the doff prompt outside the cluster if you don't have the exploration mission.
I'd argue that the random encounters in space are poorer quality than what's being pulled. The system patrols (not Tau Dewa, the old ones) are equal. Should they be pulled as well? Most of the Romulan and Cardassian arcs are below current standards, maybe they should go as well. The PVP missions in Eta Eridani don't make sense in the 2410 world. Many people don't like sector space - having to "go somewhere" is annoying, perhaps we should just put everything into the queues and call it a day? We can all stand around ESD, Qo'nos and New Romulus and queue up. As can be seen, this is a very very slippery slope - part of the appeal of this game to me is the open world quality - to make me feel like I am in the Star Trek universe. Shrinking that universe, unless there is a replacement, doesn't help that world.
Eventually all we could be left with is an iPhone/Android app that says "Starbase 82 is in danger - the Borg have been sighted, there are 200 people on that Starbase, push here to donate 2000 dilithium to faceroll the Borg attack with your ship the USS Zenfleet. Need dilithium? Zen Exchange here."
Perhaps there is some new additonal content for S9.5 that is yet to be announced. Perhaps they have finally fixed exploration and it's going to be a big reveal. Perhaps - but so far, no indication of it. Considering by now we were getting emails with shattered ESD before S9, I'd say it is doubtful.